Lewis dragged Thomas to his feet. Then he and Nicole corralled us at the rear doors of the van, which were still closed.
Nicole held her hand out for Lewis’s backpack. He tossed it over and she produced the tape again, looping it around my knees and ankles. She did the same with Thomas. “You’re going to have to hop in,” she said, opening the two doors at the rear of the van. It was wide open for cargo, with two seats up front. I saw what looked like a small pile of folded moving blankets.
From his backpack, Lewis took out what looked like winter ski masks, with holes for the eyes, mouth, and nose.
He pulled the ski mask down over my head, with the holes at the back. I heard Thomas grunting his objections as his ski mask went on. Someone took me by the shoulders—Nicole, I thought, since the hands felt smaller than a man’s—and led me into a quarter turn. “Two hops and you’re at the bumper,” she said. “Sit down and shoogle yourself in.”
It took three, and I nearly fell over on the third. I felt the bumper at my knee, turned around, sat on the edge, and leaned over carefully until my upper arm touched the floor. Then I slowly shifted my body forward into the vehicle.
“Okay, dumb-ass,” Lewis said to Thomas. “Shuffle on over here.” I felt the van shift as Thomas fell into it. “Move up.”
Then Nicole’s voice. “We’ll be on the road for a few hours. Not a sound out of you. We’ll be making stops. Tolls, gas. Somebody might come up to the window, say something. Don’t be stupid and make any noise. That will get you killed. It’ll also get whoever hears you killed.”
“We already need gas,” Lewis said. “Went through a tank getting here from Burlington.”
I heard some ruffling next to me. The moving blankets. Someone was unfolding them, shaking them out. They were draped over us, I supposed, in case anyone looked inside. I didn’t think it could get any darker, at night, inside the ski mask, but I was wrong. The world went pitch-black, and the sounds around me became more muffled.
The rear doors slammed shut; then the driver’s door opened and closed, followed by the passenger’s. I didn’t know which one of them was driving, not that it mattered. The key was turned and the van rumbled to life. Tires crunching on gravel as we rolled on down the driveway, away from my father’s house, and then turning onto the road.
We’re never coming back here, I thought.
I had a lot of time to think, in my lightless, smothering isolation.
I’d thought, when we first headed out, I’d be able to get some sense of where we were going by the turns the van made. Hadn’t I seen that in a movie somewhere, or a Batman cartoon, or a Sherlock Holmes episode? The hero concentrates on the vehicle’s movements, estimates the speed by the sound of the tires, pictures the landmarks they’re passing, and by the time they come to a stop, he knows exactly where they are.
After three turns I had no idea where we were.
Just after we left the house, we made a stop for gas. I guessed we were at the Exxon, where I’d filled up a couple of times since coming back to Promise Falls. But once we were on the road again, I soon lost my bearings. It wasn’t long before I was certain we were on an interstate. We were doing probably sixty or seventy miles an hour, and we weren’t stopping or slowing down at all. Occasionally, I could hear the roar of eighteen-wheelers passing us, which suggested interstate to me. Every five or six seconds there was a small thunk as the tires went over a pavement seam. The tires would hum, then thunk; hum, then thunk. If I’d been sitting in the driver’s seat, I might not have noticed the repetition, but lying on the cold metal floor of the van, there wasn’t much else to listen to. Every noise and bump was amplified.
And throughout all these various ruminations, one other thought kept surfacing.
Who the hell called Thomas’s phone?
Who had identified himself as Bill Clinton?
Surely not the Bill Clinton.
I’d walked in on Thomas when he was having one of his imaginary chats with the former president, and the receiver had been sitting firmly in the cradle. He had not been on the phone talking to anyone.
But none of us had imagined that phone ringing. I hadn’t imagined Lewis saying the caller had identified himself as Bill Clinton. Lewis handled the call the same way I might have, had I not been familiar with Thomas’s fantasies.
Except now I wasn’t sure what was fantasy and what was real. I couldn’t explain that phone call. It made no sense to me at all.
It couldn’t be Clinton.
Couldn’t be.
But it was somebody.
As I was thinking that, another phone began to ring. We were about half an hour into our trip. At first I wondered whether it might be my cell, which Lewis had slipped from my jacket at one point and tossed into his backpack, but I was pretty sure I’d seen him power it off. Maybe Julie calling to find out what had happened to us, why we weren’t at the house when she arrived. But it was a different ring. Mine sounded like a piano, but this one mimicked an old-fashioned phone. After two rings, I heard Lewis say, “Here.”
I struggled to filter out all other sounds so I could hear his side of the conversation.
“Yeah, we’re on the way back…no problems…Yeah, he’s got a brother, he’s the one found the thing online…he’s kind of weird, a mental case or something…I don’t know, I’m leaving that for you to ask…And the place was freaky, the walls plastered with maps…No, no, like everywhere…Yeah, okay, and I’m bringing back a computer, the tower, they were using to surf that Web site…Yeah, and one other thing, kinda strange, but probably nothing. Phone rang, I answered it, pretended to be the brother with a cold. Anyway, caller said he was, and I’m not making this up, the caller said he was Bill Clinton…No, no real accent, but I only talked to him a second…I mean, yeah, s’what I figured, too, a crank call or something…Okay, see ya at the toy store.”
The next few miles went along in silence. Finally, Lewis said, “You haven’t got much to say.”
“You want to play I Spy?” Nicole said.
“Fine.” More silence. After another couple of miles, Nicole said, “Shit.”
“What?”
“I got a cop in my side mirror.” So Nicole was driving. “Coming up in the passing lane.
“He got his lights on?” Lewis asked. With all the blind spots a panel van offered, Lewis probably couldn’t see the car.
“No, he doesn’t, but—shit.”
“What?”
“He’s got them on now.”
And then we all heard a couple of whoops of the siren. I could sense Thomas stirring close to me. He’d no doubt been listening to everything just as closely as I had, and this most recent development probably had him wondering whether this was cause for hope.
The van slowed.
“Just be cool,” Lewis said.
“You still carry a shield?” Nicole asked. “He thinks you’re NYPD, he might cut us some slack.”
“No.” Lewis called back to us, “Either of you make a sound, cop gets shot.”
The van went off the edge of the shoulder, smooth pavement changing to crushed stone. It came to a stop and Nicole put it into park, left the motor running.
“Pulling in right behind us,” she said. “The door’s opening. Here he—it’s a woman.”
“Shit,” Lewis said. “They’re always worse.”
I heard a window power down. Nicole said, “Officer.”
“License and registration,” she said.
“Sure. Hon, you want to check the glove box?” Nicole asked Lewis, who sounded like he was shuffling through some papers, looking.
“This your van?” the woman asked.
“No, it’s a rental,” Nicole said. “We’re just going to his sister’s in White Plains, helping her move to Albany. Was I speeding?”
“You have a taillight out,” the police officer said.
“Oh, nuts. Is that my fault?” Nicole asked. “Isn’t it the rental agency’s?”
“When the vehicle is in yo
ur control, ma’am, you’re responsible for any problems.”
“Okay, well, if that’s the way it is. If I get fined for this, can I go after the rental people?”
Nicole was good. She wasn’t trying to blow her off, get rid of her in a hurry, which would set off alarms.
“That’d be up to you. I’m not going to ticket you. But if you’re going to have this truck for any length of time, you’re going to have to get it fixed. And you can send that bill to your rental company.”
“Appreciate that, Officer. Okay, here’s the registration, and here’s my license.”
“I’m going to take these back to my vehicle, ma’am. Please wait here until I return.”
“Of course.”
I heard the officer’s footsteps as she went back to her cruiser. Nicole said, softly, “Everyone’s being very good.”
A few seconds later, the cop was back at the window, saying, “Okay, here you go. Your license, registration. And like I said, you get that taillight fixed first opportunity.”
“Of course,” Nicole said.
“Thanks, Officer,” Lewis chimed in.
And then the cop, asking, “What you got in there?”
I didn’t know about Thomas, but my heart stopped. The world, at that moment, seemed to freeze, as though we’d drifted into some kind of suspended animation.
I was thinking, Please get out your gun, lady. Get out your gun.
But Nicole didn’t miss a beat. It was like she’d been waiting for the question. She said, “We have a stack of moving blankets so the furniture doesn’t get scratched.”
“You mind opening up the back for me?” the woman said.
“Hmm?” said Nicole.
“Just open it up and then you folks can be on your way.”
“Sure,” Nicole said. I heard a seat belt unbuckle and retract. I wondered whether she was reaching for her ice pick, or if Lewis was getting out his gun.
A door opened and it sounded as though Nicole had gotten out. Two sets of footsteps came down the side of the van, came to a stop around the back.
She’s going to die. The cop is going to die.
“Could you open it, ma’am?” she said.
“Sure thing.”
I was expecting to hear the door unlatch, but instead, there was some kind of electronic squawking. Static. Then the cop saying something unintelligible.
Then, “Good night, ma’am. You can go.” Then footsteps running away, the roar of the police car, tires hitting asphalt and squealing.
A door opened again, and the van shifted slightly as Nicole got back in.
“What the hell happened?” Lewis asked.
“She got some kind of emergency call.”
We got back on the road.
OVER the next hour, there was the sound of more traffic. We weren’t able to maintain a steady rate of speed. The humming of the tires sounded hollow as we crossed a bridge.
We were clearly in a more densely populated area. There were the sounds of other cars, radios, horns. We turned left and then right, and left again. More turns than I could count or remember.
Finally, the van lurched to a stop, then backed up, turning sharply. The sound of the engine echoed back at us, like we were in a garage, or an alley.
Nicole killed the engine and the two of them got out. Seconds later, the back doors opened.
“Okay, kids, we’re here,” Nicole said.
FIFTY-EIGHT
IT can’t mean anything, Howard thought, moments after he’d finished talking to Lewis. He paced the floor of his brownstone living room, trying to think it through.
That call to the Kilbride house from someone claiming to be Bill Clinton was no doubt what Lewis believed it to be. A crank call. Or it could even be that it was Bill Clinton, just not the Bill Clinton. Howard himself knew a Franklin Clinton, a Robert Clinton, an Eleanor Clinton. Promise Falls probably had half a dozen Bill Clintons. Every town in America probably did.
And as worried as Howard was about the CIA’s possible involvement in his and Morris’s troubles, it made no sense at all to him that a former president would in any way be involved. That seemed even more preposterous than a Vermont illustrator doing undercover investigative work.
Soon enough, he’d be able to sort it out, once he was able to ask Ray Kilbride and his brother questions face-to-face. He had every confidence that Lewis, and this woman who’d botched things in the first place, and whom Lewis had brought along for this assignment, would be able to persuade them to talk.
Howard wondered about that, about why Lewis had brought her in for this—Howard sincerely hoped—last step in tying up any loose ends in this unfortunate mess. But he had a feeling. Now that this matter was coming to a close, Lewis was going to settle things. The woman’s error had caused them all a great deal of grief. Howard had known Lewis long enough to know that he couldn’t let that go.
Lewis would do what he felt he had to do. And Howard didn’t need to know about it.
NEARLY three hours later, another call from Lewis. “We’ve arrived.”
“I’ll be there shortly,” Howard said.
They’d gotten into the city late, behind schedule. Howard was not going to be able to have his meeting with Morris Sawchuck. He’d call him from the car to cancel.
Howard stepped out onto the front stoop of his Eighty-first Street brownstone. His black Mercedes was parked just up the street. He walked to it and, standing by the driver’s door, got out his cell phone and called Morris.
“Hey,” Morris said. “I’m on my way.”
There were muffled driving sounds in the background. He’d be in his town car, with his driver, Heather, who was available to chauffeur him around whenever he needed her, 24-7.
“I’m sorry, Morris, but I’m afraid I’m going to have to reschedule.”
“What’s going on?”
“I’m a little under the weather. Might be the flu. Let’s talk in the morning. Maybe we can do this tomorrow night. A hundred apologies.”
“Sorry to hear that. I was looking forward to this, but if you’re sick, you need to take care of yourself.”
“Thank you. I’m grateful for your understanding.” Howard forced a chuckle. “Our plans for world domination will hold until tomorrow.” He opened the driver’s door, slipped in behind the wheel, the phone pressed to his ear the whole time.
“Of course,” Morris said. “We’ll talk then.”
Howard ended the call, tossed the phone onto the leather passenger seat, pulled his door shut. He keyed the ignition and took off down the street.
HEATHER was just turning the town car onto Eighty-first when Morris, in the backseat, was telling his friend to take care of himself, that they would talk the next day.
Heather said, “Isn’t that Mr. Talliman up ahead, sir?”
Morris shifted to the center of the seat and peered through the windshield, saw Howard’s car pulling away from the curb.
“Yes,” Morris said. “He certainly appears well enough to drive.”
“Would you like me to pull up alongside him?”
Morris only had to think for a second. “No. No, we won’t do that.”
“Home, then?”
“No,” he said. “Let’s see where he goes.”
Which they did. All the way downtown to East Fourth Street. Howard parked his Mercedes at the curb and walked up to the front door of a darkened shop. There was an alley to the left of it, and a white van parked there.
“What is that place?” Morris asked. His eyes weren’t as sharp as they used to be, but Heather was an owl at night.
“Ferber’s Antiques,” she said. Even though the display window was unlit, she said she thought she could see a variety of children’s toys. The kinds they didn’t make anymore. Metal cars, old trains, what looked like a Meccano crane, a Rock ’em Sock ’em Robots boxing game.
“What the hell is he doing at a toy store in the middle of the night?” Morris said. “The place is closed.”
“Yes,” Heather said, “but someone’s there. A light just came on in the back. More like just a flicker, really.”
Morris watched as someone unlocked the door, opened it wide enough to allow Howard to slip inside, then closed it after him. A moment later, another flicker of light, like a curtain was moving from side to side, and then the shop went dark.
“We’ll wait,” Morris said.
FIFTY-NINE
EARLIER that evening, the Promise Falls City Council was in a heated debate about whether to sell advertising on city land. The way it would work was, businesses could purchase a small sign that said This Garden Supported By, followed by the company’s name. The sign would be stuck into the ground wherever the city maintained gardens. So residents might see one by the tulip garden at the south end of the common, or along the median on Saratoga, or in the small park in the west end of town where dog owners could let their pets run off the leash. Some council members thought the signs would be a blot on the landscape. Others thought the plan was a great way to bring in revenues without raising taxes. Someone asked, “What are we going to do when a sex shop wants to sponsor a garden across from a church? Has anyone thought about that?”
Julie McGill, sitting at the press table, taking notes and giving a very good impression of someone who gave a shit, was wondering whether she’d bought the right kind of wine to take when she went back out to see Ray.
She didn’t really know if he was a red wine guy or a white wine guy. Maybe he wasn’t a wine guy at all. She hadn’t known him long enough to really know. So before she’d come to cover this council meeting, she’d bought two bottles of California red, one California white, and one French white, and a six-pack of Amstel. That way, she had all bases covered.
The problem was, she’d left all of it in her car when she got to city hall. It wasn’t like you could walk into the mayor’s office and say, Hey, can you put these in the fridge while I write down all the stupid shit you and the rest of the council say over the next couple of hours? Okay, maybe it wasn’t such a big deal with the red, which supposedly you didn’t serve chilled, although Julie still liked it that way. But maybe, once she got to Ray’s place, they could start with the red and put the two bottles of white into the freezer for half an hour or so.